THE UK’s NEWEST ON-LINE VIDEO MAGAZINE ROOTSANDBLUESUK.COM

THE UK's NEWEST ON-LINE VIDEO MAGAZINE
with the Pretty Things, Gwyn Ashton, Larry Miller,
Art Themen and the best of Roots, Blues, Americana, Swing, Jazz & Rock
'n Roll
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This is one of the great Stones’ albums and its quite ironic, Jagger is reported as saying “I really like girls an awful lot,” (Rolling Stone 1978). “And I don’t think I’d say anything really nasty about any of them.” And yet on Some Girls is that Mick has a piquently sardonic phrase or two for everybody. At a time when they seemed to be fading away, they boogied back to the front with some of their edgiest songs ever: the punkish sleaze of “Shattered,” the soulful Keith Richards inspired “Beast of Burden,” the late-night-disco beat of the mega-hit ‘Miss You’ and more. The resulting album was the Rolling Stones’ funniest, and bitchiest album ever– a classic that is still their biggest- selling record.

So how could they improve an album like that? Well how about making it twice as long? This edition has 12 outtakes, many of which have been owned on bootlegs by Stones fanatics for years. In fact some of the newly released tracks are nearly as good as the originals; they certainly they live up to the spirit of Some Girls spirit; from the cheeky piano lament “Petrol Blues” to Keith Richards’ tender Nashville cover “We Had It All.”

At the time of the Some Girls sessions the Stones were notably productive – it was mostly just the five Stones plus engineer Chris Kimsey staying up in a Paris studio and recording numerous songs. Some of the leftovers landed on later albums – such as ‘Hang Fire’ and ‘Black Limousine’, they were both released on Tattoo You. Others remained unfinished till now. The outtakes were refurbished with guitar overdubs and some new vocals. As on last year’s Exile on Main St. reissue, the touch-ups usually improve bootleg versions – for instance ‘No Spare Parts’ a twangy reverie that finally gets the Mick vocal that its always needed.

One of the best new tracks is ‘Do You Think I Really Care,’ a country trek through New York noir coloured by Ronnie Wood on pedal steel and driven by Charlie Watts’ drums. Jagger chases an erotic mirage all over the city…from the D train to Max’s Kansas City. No one but the Stones could pull off a song this great?

‘Claudine’ is one of the Rolling Stones most notorious lost tunes, it’s a Chuck Berry style rocker that lampoons the Claudine Longet / Spider Sabich scandal. Mick sings over ragged guitars, about a Vegas singer who shot her Olympic-skier boyfriend. It might be a libel lawyer’s cream dream (“Blood in the chalet, blood in the snow/She washed her hands of the whole damn show”), but it holds up as a funny satire of American celebrity – something the Stones knew all about by then.

Mick and Keith rediscovered their Glimmer Twins chemistry, whether it’s a blues groove like ‘When You’re Gone’ or a rumble through the Freddy Cannon classic rock ‘n roller ‘Tallahassee Lassie.’ (And this is just a taste of the treasures still in the vault – where the hell is “Fiji Jim”?) This package catches the Stones on a real roll, thriving on the pervading punk and funk energy; with Mick driving the music and playing more guitar than ever. This is the ultimate version of the album that invented the modern day Stones: mean, vital, gloriously unrepentant.